DUBAI (12 January, 2017) – A lap time of 1m57.705s for Dutch driver Jeroen Bleekemolen secured pole position for the Black Falcon Mercedes-AMG GT3 (#2, Khaled Al Qubaisi/Jeroen Bleekemolen/Patrick Assenheimer/Manuel Metzger) in qualifying for the Hankook 24H DUBAI. “After our good performance in free practice, I was really confident already. The handling of the car was great and although I had some traffic in qualifying, it was enough to be on pole,” Bleekemolen commented. It was his second pole for the Hankook 24H DUBAI after 2013. The fastest of the two GRT Grasser Racing Team Lamborghinis (#963, Mirko Bortolotti/Chrtistian Engelhart/Rik Breukers/Rolf Ineichen/Mark Ineichen) qualified second from the Herberth Motorsport Porsche (#911, Daniel Allemann/Ralf Bohn/Robert Renauer/Alfred Renauer/Brendon Hartley). With the Optimum Motorsport Audi R8 LMS (#14, Joe Osborne/Flick Haigh/Ryan Ratcliffe/Christopher Haase) in fourth, four different brands will be represented on the first two rows of the grid for the race that will start tomorrow at 14.00 hrs local time.

Some ten minutes into the session, Jeroen Bleekemolen was the first driver to post a lap time under 1m58s and with that time, he remained on top of the time sheets. “It got pretty close in the end, because Mirko Bortolotti was quite quick with the Lamborghini. I went out for another attempt and I was faster, but then I had my time disallowed because there were said to be yellow flags, although they were gone by the time I got past. In the end, it didn’t matter anyway because my initial lap time was enough fir pole,” Bleekemolen said.

Christopher Zöchling was fastest in the 991 class for a long time, but it was Klaus Bachler who eventually put the race:pro motorsport Porsche 911 Cup (#63, Stanislav Minsky/Murad Sultanov/Klaus Bachler/Carlos Rivas/Mark Wallenwein) on pole in class with a lap time of 2m03.556s. The fastest of the two MSG Motorsport cars (#92, Philipp Sager/Alex Autumn/Christopher Zöchling/Nico Rindlisbacher/Stephan Kuhs) ended up second with the Black Falcon TMD Friction Porsche (#69, Burkhard Kaiser/Sören Spreng/Miguel Toril/Bandar Alesayi) third.

British driver Mike Simpson secured pole position in the SP3-GT4 class with the CWS Ginetta G55 GT4 (#178, Colin White/Tom Hibbert/Mike Simopson/Brandon Gdovic). Simpson posted his time of 2m08.835s fairly early in the session and then remained on top. Jann Mardenborough was second fastest with the Nissan GT Academy Team RJN Nissan (#123, Jann Mardenborough/Ricardo Sanchez/Romain Sarazin/Johnny Guindi), followed by the Century Motorsport Ginetta (#229, Nathan Freke/Alden Moffat/Jack Mitchell/Ben Green) thanks to a last-gasp effort by Freke.

In TCR, Sebastiaan Bleekemolen was the early pace-setter with the Team Bleekemolen SEAT Leon TCR (#100, Sebastiaan Bleekemolen/Michael Bleekemolen/Dennis de Borst/Aart-Jan Ringelberg), but he eventually had to make do with second place in class as versatile Swiss racer Mathias Beche claimed class pole with the Modena Motorsports SEAT Leon TCR (#216, Wayne Shen/John Shen/Francis Tjia/Mathias Beche) with a time of 2m11.319s. Third place in class went to the brand-new Cadspeed Racing with Atech Audi RS3 LMS (#108, James Kaye/Julian Griffin/Erik Holstein/Finlay Hutchinson) on the endurance racing debut of the car.

CUP1 qualifying honours were taken by Oskar Sandberg in the Sorg Rennsport BMW (#151, Stephan Epp/Christian Andreas Franz/Michael Hollerweger/Heiko Eichenberg/Oskar Sandberg) with a time of 2m18.099s. The fastest of the two Bonk Motorsport cars (#146, Hermann Bock/Rainer Partl/Max Partl) was second, followed by the second Sorg Rennsport car (#152, Ahmed Al Melaihi/Jesus Diez/José Manuel de los Milagros/George Richardson/Shawn Peh).

Team Altran Peugeot locked out the first two positions in the A3 class, with Gonzalo Martin de Andres putting the number 908 Peugeot 308 (#908, Yusif Bassil/Thierry Boyer/Gonzalo Martin de Andres/Loïc Dupont) on pole with a time of 2m16.141s, followed by the sister car (#308, Guillaume Roman/Thierry Blaise/Kim Holmgaard/Michael Carlsen). The Cor Euser Racing BMW (#71, Sam Allpass/Richard Verburg/Cor Euser/Klaus-Dieter Frommer/Michael Nielsen) was third.

There were three different brands on the first three places in the A2 class, with the Team Eva Solo/K-Rejser Peugeot RCZ (#171, Jacob Kristensen/Jan Engelbrecht/Thomas Sørensen/Jens Mølgaard/Henrik Sørensen) claiming pole with 2m19.819s set by Kristensen. The Team Cooksport Renault Clio (#172, Alex Sedgwick/Shayne Deegan/Oliver Cook/Jonathan Maybin/Josh Cook) was second while local team Lap57 Motorsport had its Honda Integra DC5 (#570, Junichi Unemoto/Kouich Okumura/Teruhiko Hamano/Peter Jürgen/Ashan Silva) third.

After a warm-up from 10.00 till 10.30 hrs, the race will start tomorrow at 14.00 hrs local time. Live streaming in HD quality and commentary by Radiolemans.com will be available on the website www.24hseries.com. There will also be regular updates on Facebook (24H Series), Twitter (@24HSeries) and Instagram (24H Series).

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